Which is more important, skill or knowledge?

We’re seeing lots of evidence that suggests that there is a growing gap between what universities are producing and what industry needs in terms of engineering graduates, and not just in India, but worldwide.

What is interesting is it is often described as a “skills gap”, and not a “knowledge gap”. Are people just being sloppy with their words… we’re beginning to think not.

Much of our engineering education has become focused on knowledge acquisition at the expense of the development of skills.

Knowledge acquisition fits nicely with the testing-based assessment models that are so popular in educational institutions in so many countries, whereas skills require productivity and behavior assessments that few in education are able to design and deliver in the way that business wants and needs.

Skills are a different kind of knowledge. A bright person can look at a complex thing and come to understand and “know it” very quickly. Developing the skills to apply the knowledge effectively and wisely is something else all together. Much of the difficulty we are facing with education is that we aren’t recognizing the productivity and behavior aspects of both engineering as a discipline, and business in general.